Card,Orson Scott - Capitol - Notisblokk

Card, Orson Scott - Capitol

CAPITOL

by

Orson Scott Card

***

CONTENTS

Preface

A Sleep and a Forgetting

A Thousand Deaths

Skipping Stones

Second Chance

Breaking the Game

Lifeloop

Burning

And What Will We Do Tomorrow?

Killing Children

When No One Remembers His Name, Does God Retire?

The Stars That Blink

***

To Jay A. Perry,

Who has read everything and made it better

***

Preface

Fiction usually does a better job standing on its own, but occasionally a word

of explanation can help a reader receive a work as the author means to give it.

Capitol is not a novel; however, it is also not a short story collection.

While all the stories in Capitol are completely self-contained, they are placed

in the book in chronological order, to gradually unfold the biography of a world

and a way of life that is born in "A Steep and a Forgetting" and dies in "The

Stars That Blink. " I urge you to read them in order.

Also, Capitol overlaps in time and some characters with Hot Sleep, which is a

novel, and which is soon to appear, like Capitol, as an Analog Book. Together,

they comprise what is now extant of The Worthing Chronicle.

***

A SLEEP AND A FORGETTING

There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any

remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.

-- Ecclesiastes 1:11

There was nothing remarkable about a rat failing to run a maze. What was

remarkable was that five rats ran the maze perfectly-- and five did not.

"My Lord," whispered George Rines.

"Run it again?" asked Vaughn Shirten, the lab assistant who tended the rats.

"Of course."

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Card, Orson Scott - Capitol

The five rats who had failed before failed again. The others ran the maze

perfectly.

"Vaughn, do you have five rats that have never run a maze at all?"

"Rats of every kind. Smart, stupid, and psychologically virgin." He brought

five virgins from the ratroom and put them in their first maze. There was no

significant difference between the performance of the virgins and the five rats

who had failed to run the maze before.

"My God," whispered George Rines. "What have we done?"

"Made rive smart rats stupid, looks like."

Two days before, all ten rats had run the maze perfectly. They had been

divided randomly into two groups. Five of the rats were then given a drug; a day

later they were given another. Those were the five that had forgotten how to run

the maze.

"I'm not worried about the rats," George said.

"I am," said Vaughn.

"We've been giving that drug to people."

Vaughn looked at him blankly. "People? A stupid drug? Who needs a drug to make

people stupid?"

"Somec, Vaughn. Somec."

It was Vaughn's turn to look shocked. "I thought they tested that!"

"All the tests but this one, Vaughn."

"But-- haven't they woken up any of the people who've gone on somec?"

"Not yet." George smiled wanly. "They all had cancer. They didn't want to be

wakened until there was a cure."

"Somec." Vaughn laughed. "Some miracle drug!"

"It isn't funny," George said.

***

"You signed a contract," Dr. Tell insisted. "You can't publish without my

consent."

George shook his head. "I can't publish scholarly papers. So if you won't let

me take it to fellow scientists, I'll take it to the press. They'll print the

story."

Tell glared; restrained himself from shouting; said, "You bastard. You would."

"It isn't enough just to stop authorizing it. The formula is public

knowledge-- what's to stop some grad student from whipping it up in his lab for

a friend? Even the life support isn't hard to arrange."

"You don't seem to understand." Slowly, carefully. The smile that had launched

a thousand research projects made a struggle to appear on his face. It failed.

"There is more at stake than somec."

George closed his eyes.

"There's a thing called independent research. We checked everything. We were

so careful, George. We even did rat tests. Gave somec to some rats, not to

others, and then taught them both mazes. There was no effect. How were we to

know that somec impaired memory?"

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Card, Orson Scott - Capitol

"It doesn't impair, Dr. Tell. It eliminates."

"You don't know that."

"I'm pretty damn sure."

"Pretty damn isn't sure enough, George. There's that jackass of a senator

who'll stand up and piously denounce federally funded projects that make basket

cases out of people who already have problems. He'll do it, you know, and

that'll mean funds cut off from everything."

"So what will you do, pretend everything's all right? They're not that far

from curing some types of cancer now, and when they can fix it they'll wake up

the sleepers who have that cancer and they'll find that they're vegetables."

"I don't know what we're going to do yet!" Dr. Tell shouted.

"We're going to warn the public."

"We're going to keep it quiet until we know what we're going to do."

"And when will that be?"

"I don't know."

George stood up. "I didn't think so. I know, Dr. Tell. It'd be nice to tell

the press, there was a disaster, but this is how we're going to solve it in the

future. But we can't do that, can we? So we're going to warn people, and warn

them now, that somec does exactly what we've claimed it does, with one side

effect. It wipes out memory."

"Dammit, George, we don't know that!"

"We suspect it. That's enough."

"If you do this, George, I can promise you that you'll never have a research

or teaching job in the United States of America. Or Britain. Or anywhere!"

"In five years there'll be Russian troops all over America and none of us will

have teaching jobs except those of us who know what we're doing in a laboratory.

No more fund-raising experts, Dr. Tell. So I'm really not worried about your

threat."

"And if the Russians don't come, Cassandra?"

"I will have saved some lives."

"'You're out for headlines, you bastard, if it destroys American science in

the process! You want to be a crusader! You want to--"

The door slammed, and George didn't hear the rest of the speech. In a way, he

knew Dr. Tell was right. George's own first impulse was to keep his discovery

silent. He had wrestled with the problem all night, had hardly slept, but he

decided at about four a.m. that he really had no choice. Either he could be the

crusader who was hated by other scientists, or he could be one of the bastards

who hushed it up, hated by the rest of the world. The rest of the world was

bigger. And none of the scientists would be left mindless.

He returned to his office to clean out his desk and load his books into boxes.

The reporters would be meeting him at his home in three hours. There was no

point in pretending to stay at the Institute. His letter of resignation was

already on the Director's desk. It was, almost a formality, telling Dr. Tell.

But he was the man who was supervising the whole somec project-- he had to know.

I feel like a murderer. So much hope for somec. But is it my fault? No. We

were too excited. We thought we had tested everything. We deserve to be punished

for acting too quickly, too unthoroughly.

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Card, Orson Scott - Capitol

Punished? George frowned at the thought. Not a matter of punishment or guilt

or anything. Just stop the somec and find a way to get around the problem.

When he pulled the Scientific Americans off the shelf, they scattered in every

direction. There were quite a few of them, most of the recent ones dogeared

where he meant to read an article sometime soon. It was the only way he had to

keep up on fields other than his own.

Perhaps in order to avoid thinking about the announcement he was going to make

to the reporters in a couple of hours, or perhaps because moving out of the

office was so distasteful to him, George picked up the top magazine and opened

it to the first dog-eared page. He skimmed; read two more articles; then opened

another magazine. Braintaping was the title of the first article he turned to;

"Instantaneous teaching by establishing currents in the brain? It may be within

reach." It intrigued George enough to lead him into the magazine. And what he

found there meant that he wouldn't pack up after all.

It took half an hour to finish the entire article. It took another ten minutes

to get in telephone contact with Doran Waite, the man whose name led off the

article. And it took three minutes to verify the hope that the article gave.

"Yes, Dr. Rines, that's right. We can't do it with complicated mammals like

primates, but with rats we can take the entire learning of one rat and put it

into the head of another. For quite a while, they're okay."

"And after a while?"

"They're not okay. They go crazy."

"Dr. Waite, can you come out here? Or better still, can I go out there?"

It took another fifteen minutes to get reservations, and then George left his

office without calling home. The reporters could wait until tomorrow. Then he'd

have the hopeful note Dr. Tell wanted, the one that could forestall drastic

government action, the one that might save the,hundreds of people whose memories

were already irrevocably lost.

When it became clear to the reporters who showed up at his house that George

Rines was not there and would not be there, they called his office and were told

that he had resigned and left. Most gave up then; a few did not; one actually

went to the Institute and talked to everyone. No one would talk. Except for the

ratman, the lab assistant who cared for the behavioral testing animals. Vaughn

Shirten.

The headline was large-- the editor was willing to go with the story when he

saw the copy of the press release that the reporter had found on George's desk--

the one he didn't mean to release. It was quoted from extensively, along with a

few juicier quotes from Vaughn. "It seems highly likely that at least some of

those who have taken somec have been partially or completely deprived of their

memory," said George's release. "That means that a hell of a lot of folks won't

even know haw to speak or go to the bathroom," Vaughn added helpfully. "It means

that they won't have anything left but their instincts. And human beings don't

have as much instinct as a planaria."

It was three a.m. in Berkeley when the motel operator finally agreed to call

room 215.

"Yes?" George asked sleepily.

"I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Rines. But they insisted that it's an emergency. I

told them they just couldn't because we weren't sure that the G. Rines... but

there's a government man on the phone, and a U.S. Senator called, and your

wife."

"You're kidding," George said. "Let me talk to my wife."

"It is you then? I'm so relieved."

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Card, Orson Scott - Capitol

"Yeah, you're fine, let me talk to my--"

"George!" Aggie's voice was anguished. "Oh, George, how could you have just

gone off like this--"

"I'm sorry. I didn't think I'd end up staying overnight."

"You might have called!"

"It was after midnight here when I got to the motel. It would have been two

a.m. there. I didn't want to wake you up."

"Did you think I could sleep?"

"I'm sorry. Now you know where I am--" he yawned-- "can we go back to sleep?"

"George!" she shouted. "Don't fall asleep! You can't tell me you didn't know

there'd be phone calls!"

"About what?"

"Your interview in the paper."

"I didn't do an interview--"

"That's what I told the Senator, but he kept demanding until the reporter

found that article and the phone numbers on your desk and called Dr. Waite

and--"

"You called Dr. Waite?"

"And he said you had been there all day and George, Dr. Tell called and so did

Ron Hubbard and they said you're fired, even though you resigned, and George,

there've been phone calls all evening--"

"What senator?"

"Maxwell! The anti-science one that everybody hates so bad. He thinks you're a

hero."

"He would, the bastard."

"George, what can I do?"

"Tell them all to wait until I come home. Tve got some things to talk about

with Waite."

"George, don't you have any sense of responsibility?"

"I have a sense of being very tired. Tell the reporters that we've already got

a solution to a lot of the problem. Tell the Institute they want to see me

tomorrow afternoon whether they hate me or not. And tell the senator to go shove

a bill up his--"

"George, do you have to be profane?"

"Coarse and vulgar, Aggie, but never profane. It's four a.m. I'll see you

tomorrow."

"What if I'm not home when you get there, you rotten--"

He hung up. He had a habit of shutting people out when they were getting

abusive. It saved him from a lot of unnecessary anguish. Particularly since they

were often correct.

***

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Card, Orson Scott - Capitol

In two weeks he was no longer a pariah, no longer unemployed. Congress had

approved the creation of a research office to solve the somec problem. And

George Rines was in charge of it., "Your type of science we need more of," the

senator told George. "Courageous. Thinking the new angles."

Raking up the muck, George silently filled in. But he accepted the job and

went ahead. It meant a move to California, because Waite and all the equipment

were at Berkeley. Aggie and the girls raised hell about it.

"Diane has only another year in high school!" Aggie complained.

"Then stay here," George finally exploded. "It's not as if I needed you out

there! I can get twice as much done if I don't have to move the whole family."

He regretted saying it. He apologized. It made no difference. Aggie and Diane

and Anita stayed behind, and he had beeen in Berkeley only a week when the

notice of their legal separation reached him. He tried to call. He even flew

back. But they had moved, too, and left no address except the post office box

where he'd better send money every month or find himself in court for

abandonment, as the lawyer so carefully put it.

For the entire flight back George was distraught. His world was falling apart.

He and Aggie had meant everything to each other for years.

Then he got to Berkeley and never thought about his family except when he got

to the motel, and later to the apartment, and realized that there was no one

there. Damn them anyway, he thought. Who needs baggage? I'm accomplishing things

of lasting value. I'm taking a dangerous drug and making it fulfil its potential

for good. And if that doesn't matter as much as the stinking last year in a

stupid high school...

***

The government money poured in and the research quickly took over an entire

building in the new research complex. One department carefully verified the

extent of somec damage: when chimps, too, reverted to the behavior of newborn

infants despite tremendous amounts of previously learned behavior. The memory

loss was total.

Another department continuously played with the braintaping techniques and

equipment. One branch of research tried to separate certain kinds of knowledge

and memory from others-- it met repeated failures and no success at all. Another

branch simplified the method of taping brain patterns and imposing them on

another subject. It got to the point where even complex chimpanzee behavior

could be taught in three minutes with a taper. The trouble was, the chimpanzees

were hopelessly insane within fifteen minutes.

It was the third department that George supervised personally. There somec was

mixed with braintaping technology. And there they found the first hopes of

success.

The somec story had been front-page news. Now, however, the story was buried;

each new success seemed to be timed perfectly to coincide with world events that

filled the airwaves and the newspapers.

For example, when George first verified that if a trained rat was braintaped

before being drugged with somec, and then the tape was reimpinged on the same,

rat's brain after it woke up, the rat immediately regained all its former

training, with no measurable impairment at all. And for six weeks afterward

there was no sign of insanity. The results were encouraging enough to call a

news conference. The reporters came.

But the same day, the president announced that aerial photographs proved that

while the missiles had been taken out of Quebec, large concentrations of Russian

troops were unloading from the trawlers that were making ridiculously heavy

traffic between Leningrad and Montreal. There was only one reason for Russian

troops to be in Quebec. "Defense," said the Quebecois PM, during the first

interview, before he knew the Russians were going to try to deny it. "Attack,"

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Card, Orson Scott - Capitol

said the U.S. President, and put the troops on alert. "Just try it," said the

Russian General Secretary.

The U.S. President didn't, and the somec story was never noticed.

When George found that trained chimps could be taped and their tapes played

into other chimps' brains without ill effect provided the receivers had been

drugged with somec first, the story was worthy of note, certainly. The reporters

thought so, even though the chimps had only been out for a week-- since insanity

had always occurred in such a case within an hour, it seemed that the somec had

solved the problem. And the Congressional oversight committee authorized George

to begin working to try to save the humans who had been put under somec.

However, that news never reached the American public because that week

Russian, Polish, Hungarian, and East German troops lurched across the heavily

defended border of West Germany and the not particularly heavily defended border

of Austria. "Stop," the American President said, "Make us," the General

Secretary said. "Use your missiles," cried the Chancellor of West Germany. "We

can't be the first to use nuclear weapons," answered the anguished American

President. "De Gaulle told you so," the French newspapers, now suddenly

Gaullist, cried in print. But no one in Germany read them-- the Russian troops

were pouring into Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark by now. And

though American troops were dying, the president could not push the button or

give the order or even find anyone willing to do it for him. "American promises

are a fart in the wind," said the ranking Tory MP, and the Labor PM didn't even

deplore the crudity.

George Rines taped the brains of the next of kin of the five healthiest

sleepers. They woke up believing they were the other person, but George's staff

and the relatives carefully helped the former sleeper realize his true identity

and step into that role. Four days after the five humans were awakened, the

chimps that had been given another chimp's memories all went crazy. At once. As

if on cue.

And only a week, later, the sleepers joined them.

Dialogue with Thomas N. Cortia, the last of the five to remain sane:

Good morning, Tom.

"Morning, George."

No use hiding this from you.

"Mrs. Feean went off the deep end."

You're the miracle man now, Tom. How do you do it?

"Maybe I'm just stubborn and maybe I'm too old to go crazy and maybe I'm

already halfway crazy and we don't know it yet."

There's not much hope.

"Can't say I mind."

What's it feel like, Tom?

"Doesn't feel too normal. For one thing, it sounds strange even now to have

you calling me Tom. All my memories right now have everybody calling me Bill. My

brother, right? Don't feel like my brother. It feels like me."

Really?

"No."

Not really?

"I mean it don't feel like me. I mean those memories-- they just aren't right

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Card, Orson Scott - Capitol

at all. Not at all. I know Bill pretty well right now, and I know he'd hate it

if he knew how complete my knowledge of his past really is. I never knew he

screwed my cousin Sally. At a family reunion, right in the bathroom. That

memory's just been eating at me, George. Cause I wouldn't have done that.

There's no time in my life I would've rutted on a woman like that. That's not my

style."

What is your style, Tom?

"I don't know, dammit. All my memories is telling me that is my style, but

it's wrong. Dead wrong. I don't know why."

What about yourself? Tom, not the Bill memories.

"All I know about me is the way Bill remembers me. George, it's impossible to

see myself as a stinkin' little tagalong who's worth less than horse manure. I

wasn't like that. But Bill knows me better than any other living human being

knows me, right? It isn't me, though. Lord, it isn't me. And I wouldn't've said

what Bill said."

When?

"Ever! George, you don't know what it's like. As far as I know, I'm Bill. But

every damn memory I have is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I wouldn't act that way.

I wouldn't do those things. I wouldn't've married that tight little bitch he

picked up in New York. I wouldn't've raised my kids so pussyfoot easy, they all

turned into bastards. My life's turned out all wrong, George, and I can't handle

that. I've done everything wrong in my life, at least that's how I remember it,

and you can tell me it isn't true and tell me I'm really Tom and not Bill but

that doesn't change what I remember and what I remember doesn't change the fact

that Bill just doesn't act the way I'd act and...

Calm down, now, Tom. Don't let it get to you.

"It was easier the first few days. Hell, George, I was like a man trying out a

brand new body. My fingers didn't act right. My legs kept walking shorter than

they oughta. I had plenty to occupy my mind. Especially the cancer. My brother's

memories don't include himself having any cancer, you know."

They can cure it.

"They can't cure my head. George, I promise you I'll hang on as long as I can,

but I'll go bonkers soon enough."

Don't do it on my account.

"No. No sir, wouldn't put myself out none for you."

Tom, when you go crazy, if you do, we'll just put you under somec again. And

we'll try to bring you out of it when we know how to do it better.

"Forget it, George. If it means somebody else's head in mine, forget it. It's

hell, George. When I die, they're sending me to hell, and it'll be just like

this."

See you tomorrow, Tom.

"Fat chance, George. But you're a nice young bastard, even if you are screwing

up people's heads. Have a good day."

You too, Tom.

***

They tried it again. They started with the assumption that it was too

confusing to use a near relative as the source of memories. It was too difficult

when the patient knew he had once been someone else. So they took five more;

again, those with the least advanced cancer. They gave them the braintapes of

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Card, Orson Scott - Capitol

people their age and their sex, but told the patients nothing of the experiment.

Instead, the patients were told that they had had amnesia and a serious illness,

but they were getting better.

It made no difference.

Dialogue with Marian Williamson, the last of the five to remain sane. She

believed her name was Lydia Harper:

Lydia, how did you sleep?

"It was hideous."

Hideous? Why?

"I kept dreaming."

About what?

"You told me you weren't a shrink."

I lied. Haven't you ever lied?

"Yes, Dr. Rines, I have."

Are you good at it?

"Very, very good." [Patient weeps.]

What's wrong, Lydia?

"Doctor, I don't know, I don't know, I keep dreaming terrible dreams, I keep

seeing myself doing hideous things, what's wrong with me?"

I don't know. You were sick.

"Not that sick. Oh, I have an occasional pain in my stomach, but nothing too

serious, I'm not a hypochondriac, I refuse to complain, but doctor, I can't bear

living with myself."

Come now. You've lived with yourself all your life.

"I don't know how I did it. Dr. Rines, is it possible for a person to keep

doing things all her life and then suddenly wish she had never done them?

Suddenly wonder how in the world she had ever done them?"

Like what?

"I'm not Catholic. I don't like confessing."

Is it that terrible?

"Sometimes."

Tell me the other times.

"It'll sound so silly."

I promise not to laugh unless you laugh first.

"I'll hold you to that, doctor. Because I won't laugh. And I won't tell you

something silly. I'll tell you the worst thing of all."

Only if you want to.

"I have to. Oh, God, help me. I'm not an old woman, doctor. I'm only

thirty-eight. I haven't seen a mirror since I woke up after my amnesia, but even

if I'm ugly now, doctor, I was once quite a pretty young woman. Doctor, I-- even

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Card, Orson Scott - Capitol

this might sound silly, but it's true-- I haven't been particularly inhibited,

sexually, during my life."

It doesn't seem to be expected these days.

"And I don't regret that. But in college, I was strapped for money. Maybe you

don't remember the recession of the seventies, doctor, but my parents couldn't

keep me in school any longer and I was determined to get an education. So I

started-- I started charging for it."

For sex?

"I was a whore. I'd make appointments through a couple of men I had had as

lovers. I charged twenty dollars. I was cheap. But I stayed in college."

You aren't the first woman to have done that.

"I know it. That isn't it, it isn't that I disapprove, though I do. I mean, I

disapprove now, but until I woke up just now I never did. What matters is that I

can't believe I ever did it."

Yet you remember that you did.

"But I wouldn't do that!"

But you did it. You're just denying the truth.

"I know, I know it, but doctor, in the name of God I swear I would never,

never, never do that. It is impossible. I can't live with myself having done

that!" [Patient weeps uncontrollably.]

It's just one thing, Lydia.

"It's not. It's the way I wore my makeup, deliberately to be seductive. I can

see myself sitting there at the mirror, relishing the effect. The memory makes

me sick. And the way I always let my father run my life. For years I did

whatever he said to do. I was so sorry when he died. Now I'm glad he's dead. And

that's terrible, because I remembered that I loved him. Why should I forget how

much I loved him?"

I don't know.

"Because he was a selfish, controlling bastard, that's why. Oh, I can't

believe I said that. I don't use language like that, doctor. I sleep with men

for money, but I don't use language like that. I'm going crazy, doctor. I'm

losing my mind. Nothing in my life seems to fit together anymore. I keep wanting

to kill myself."

I hope you won't.

"Do you think these pains in my stomach could be cancer?"

We can have that checked.

"If I have cancer, doctor, I'll kill myself. That would be the last straw."

We'll have you checked. But don't talk about killing yourself.

"I'm sorry. I've never talked that way before. I don't know why I'm talking

like that now. Thanks for listening to me, Dr. Rines. Am I really insane?"

You sound quite healthy to me.

"Really? You wouldn't lie?"

I would lie, if I thought it would do any good. But right now I'm not lying.

"Thank you. Thank you very much."

Side 10

Card, Orson Scott - Capitol - Notisblokk

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